Playing Xenoblade. Got to the heart of the Bionis interior and getting my ass kicked. Will be grinding tonight while I check on employment prospects.

Oh god, that particular battle was such a massive slowdown fest. It was like playing Odin's Sphere all over again. Coincidentally, you should be strong enough now to start checking out some of the prohibitively high level areas like in around Colony 9 and Bionis's Leg. Also, if you're brave enough (or are willing to abuse the Save anywhere feature the game has), you can take a quick dash into and out of Tephera Caves Depths for some sicknasty Ether Crystal deposits (and some sweet Location/Landmark Discovery boosts).

I'll be pretty rusty so you'll have a good chance against me!----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Aeolus - I've done a little bit of Tephra Caves - and got my ass kicked by level 97 spiders. I've got about 20 levels to go.

I might check out Colony 9 and Bionis' Leg now though, thanks.

C'mon man. Tekken is Korea's favorite fighting game. You should be awesome at it by now!

And yeah, Tephra cave is ridiculous as far as enemy levels go, but he's right it does have some nice crystal deposits. I kinda wonder if Tephra Caves is for New Game+. Seems like it to me given the level discrepancy.

I'll be pretty rusty so you'll have a good chance against me!----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Aeolus - I've done a little bit of Tephra Caves - and got my ass kicked by level 97 spiders. I've got about 20 levels to go.

I might check out Colony 9 and Bionis' Leg now though, thanks.

C'mon man. Tekken is Korea's favorite fighting game. You should be awesome at it by now!

And yeah, Tephra cave is ridiculous as far as enemy levels go, but he's right it does have some nice crystal deposits. I kinda wonder if Tephra Caves is for New Game+. Seems like it to me given the level discrepancy.

Nah, you can totally do Tephra Depths during the first run since a bunch of quests open up that by the time you complete most of them you should be powerful enough to challenge the cave. Also the performance jump between rank 5 Ether Crystals and rank 6 Ether Crystals is fucking huge, like 2x better than the best rank 5 can do. Plus, the way that high level areas have their levels distributed, you can easily go to one, fight for a bit, then move on to the next. It also helps to do the final dungeon up to the point of no return which occurs when you step on a teleporter after beating a Dragon boss. In fact its probably better to treat all the side stuff that opens up once you open up Bionis's Interior as post game stuff so you get at least one fight against the final boss at the appropriate level.

Of course the one thing that irritates me about dealing with Tephra Depths is that you need to loot enemies therein to complete Reyn's second personality quest, and by the time you're ready to do that, he's probably maxed out his other four skill sets a while ago. Also Tephra Depths is not the worst thing to deal with in terms of the post game as there are some Unique Monsters that are ridiculously powerful and will kick your ass even after clearing Tephra Depths.

That said, update time:

Cleared. Took about 4 hours. Thank god there's a route split right after this.

I think with open-ended RPGs, my issue with the lack of NPC schedules isn't so much an issue with a lack of NPC schedules making it less realistic/immersive/whatever, but that, if you have something like Morrowind with a clear quest giver NPC and a clear quest target, and you essentially just run back and forth between the two, if the quest giver doesn't do anything in the mean time, and doesn't somehow change after the completion of the quest, the fact that you are just turning on a light switch and running across the world to turn it off again is really obvious.

Though I think Morrowind and Arcanum are the only RPGs that come to mind that are really silly about having NPCs just stay rooted to the spot no matter what.

Ys 2 - Had a hard time finding the Roda Fruit because I am an idiot.

Logged

o/` I do not feel joy o/`o/` I do not dream o/`o/` I only stare at the door and smoke o/`

PSIV. I love the game of course but the more I play it, the more I miss PSO on my DC. I fondly remember months on end with PSO and Tool:Lateralus playing in the background:) ..and I just got to Zio's tower:)

Tales of Xillia:-Man does it take forever to do anything in this game. I'm sure I could be moving faster, but as someone who has to explore every nook and cranny, the new environment style can get kind of tedious. Still not sure if there's one Adrei-whose-it Treasure in each submap, but that's the theory I'm working with.

-Gotten used to Milla's VA to the point I find the lisp, intentional or not, kind of endearing. The battle theme, however, has not grown on me at all. There's a lot of VGM that I just don't care for, but this is the first piece I can recall actively disliking. It doesn't help that battles are so frequent. Every other minute "NANANA NA NA NAAAA! NANANA NA NA NAAAAA!"

-It may sound like I'm disappointed, but I just find it to be a great game with several noticeable flaws. But the potential is there for something amazing, and I'm sure once I have a full party and am introduced to everything the game has to offer I'll start enjoying it much more.(For reference's sake, I just left Milla's Shrine heading back to her village)